Damien Green never knew Chris Collins. But he would have made Collins proud of the combative nature with which he plays the game.
Green scored 81, figuring in an opening stand of 170 with Mark Eames (102), and then bowled a crucial over right at the end, one ball of which proved to be the turning point as Infidels defeated Templars by five runs in the Kowloon Cricket Club derby yesterday.
This big KCC game in the Sunday League fixture is annually played for the Chris Collins Trophy. Collins, a hearty, bustling Australian, represented Hong Kong prominently in the 80s before he died tragically in a car accident in 1990.
Fellow-Australian Green, playing his first season in Hong Kong, got the key wicket of Rahul Sharma in the penultimate over and then three balls later had Rob Gill stumped.
Those two wickets ended Templars' hopes of keeping the Trophy for the sixth successive year. The Green-Eames partnership laid the foundation for Infidels' huge score of 290 for six. Evergreen Ray Brewster contributed a useful 46 while Nick Waters chipped in with 23.
Sharma led the chase with a sparkling knock of 153. He was ably assisted by Grayson Tyndale (21), Anthony Correa (30) and Erle Pereira (31).